


Tales of the Tethras Family

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Character Studies (Dragon Age) [5]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Dragon Age II - Act 2, Gen, Tethras Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25656340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: A small collection of drabbles and occasionally longer tales focusing on the Tethras family, including Varric, Bartrand, and their mother Ilsa.
Relationships: Bartrand Tethras & Varric Tethras, Female Hawke & Varric Tethras
Series: Character Studies (Dragon Age) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/478264
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. To Tell the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bartrand reflects on the struggles of being the eldest brother.

Bartrand lied to Varric about... a lot of things.

Like Orzammar. He didn’t really remember it all that well. How could he? Their father had thrown everything away over lousy rigged Provings, and they’d lost it all when Bartrand was practically an infant.

All he remembered of the city itself was  _ glow,  _ warm golden light of the carefully tamed magma far below their feet, and  _ vast,  _ the nearly endless stone ceilings far above him. 

In the Tethras home in the Diamond Quarter, he remembered glimpses of books bound in bronto leather, thick blocky dwarven script marking the pages with neat patterns. He remembered Father in his finery, Mother in angular gold jewelry. Back then he did not remember her drinking. He never knew the smell of mosswine. 

Later, he knew wine and whisky all too well.

She started drinking up on the surface. She slurred when she talked, the harsh edges to her words softened by the alcohol, and sometimes she sat on her bed with huge tears in her eyes in yesterday’s clothes. She missed Father, and she missed Orzammar, and the sky dizzied her. 

Bartrand felt the same. But Varric -- he barely remembered Father at all, and he’d only ever known the sun.

Bartrand knew his duty, and he tried to teach his brother what he should know. At first it was the things Father had shown him, about how to be clever, how to watch out for things that felt wrong. And it was the things Mother had told him, about counting, about money, about leverage.

But he ran out of those things to tell him soon enough, and Varric filled the space between with his own stories. It made Bartrand uneasy. If he wasn’t careful, Varric would start to make up the wrong things. He felt very deeply, very sternly, that an older brother should not let a younger brother become an idiot.

So Bartrand talked of Orzammar, and he strove to pull stories and legends out of half-remembered  _ glow _ and  _ vast _ , out of bronto leather and finery and the stories Mother used to tell him, and he thought that even if he’d made some of it up, he’d done pretty well as an older brother. He thought he’d taught him what mattered. He thought he’d done what his father would have done,  _ should  _ have done.

… Except that Varric was a little  _ shit. _

***

Varric only got worse the bigger he got. Once Bartrand had been excited about the idea of a younger brother, someone to share in the Tethras name with him. Instead he discovered younger brothers were an exercise in pure frustration.

Varric teased him when his beard finally came in, snide little comments about old Paragons and making fashion statements. Bartrand’s fingers twisted jerkily at the clumsily woven braids he’d made. At the look in his eyes Varric threw back his head and laughed, then ran as fast as he could when Bartrand raised his fist. Later Bartrand stared at himself in the mirror and undid the little braids, one by one. 

Varric ignored him when Bartrand showed him old accounts and ancestors’ names written finely on delicate deepwood parchment, trying to make him understand where they’d come from, filling in the details as best he could remember. Maybe some of it was lies. Just a little, just enough to make his obnoxious brother pay attention. The lies didn’t work, though, and Varric would pull out pages of human-made vellum scribbled on with child-sized handwriting, grinning from ear to ear. 

_ I made it more interesting, _ he’d laugh, building scaffolds of bigger lies and wild fantasy on top of Bartrand’s dusty foundations. More than once the lessons ended with Bartrand threatening a black eye, and Varric sullen and kicking his chair with his feet.

But then there was the time Varric broke the dish, one of the last from Orzammar that hadn’t broken or been sold off when they’d first come to the surface. At first Varric looked like he would burst into nervous laughter. Before Bartrand could work up the anger to start yelling, Varric crumbled. Fell on his knees, started sweeping up the shattered pieces, said he was  _ sorry, all right, I didn’t mean it, honest _ . 

Bartrand still yelled, but he was strangely gratified when Varric left a glued and scarred plate on the kitchen table for him to find a day later. It broke apart when he touched it, gold filigree forever cracked in half, a useless repair job.

It was the best thing Varric had ever done.

When Varric asked Bartrand if the glue had held, later that night, Bartrand lied to him.  _ Sure it did, brother. You fixed it, in the end.  _

He wondered what Varric thought when the plate was never displayed again. He wondered, but never asked.

*** 

Bartrand was fifteen when he entered the meeting house of the Merchants’ Guild for the first time as the head of House Tethras. He’d trained hard the past three years under older members of the Guild, cut his eyeteeth on smaller, safer trades until he started to  _ see _ the patterns, sense them in a way that was hard to describe and easier to feel. Parchment and coin felt at times like an extension of his hands, a medium he instinctively knew how to manipulate. He wasn’t much for imagination, but when he allowed it a place in his head, he imagined a painter or a sculptor felt much the same way.

He tried to include Varric, ancestors knew he did. It got harder and harder to try and teach him, but he kept it up, gruffly trying to explain the patterns and their intricacies. Especially since Ilsa had grown more and more isolated, keeping to herself in her bedroom, rarely interacting with them. 

It was up to Bartrand now. And he could rise to the challenge. So he thought, anyway.

He tried to drag Varric along to meetings at the Guild. He pointed out who was a useful contact, who would stab you in the back, who was broke and pretending he wasn’t, who was drowning in coin and pretending he was broke. He hired bodyguards after the first time Varric insulted a particularly violent house, and temporarily kicked his brother out of the Guild after the third round of insults ended with a knife to Bartrand’s throat, a dead fourth son of a minor family, and an arrow in Varric’s leg. The night was a blur but Bartrand clearly remembered his coinpurse emptying out by half, his brother’s face white and sweating, and his hands sticky with Varric’s blood.  _ Not _ something he ever wanted to relive.

After that Bartrand broke down and started paying for dueling training for his mouthy little brother. Bastard might as well fight his own fights, if he was going to start them. He showed little promise with daggers or swords, but the tutors said he had a fine eye with a bow.

***

Years on, Bartrand still worried about Varric. Oh, sure, in some ways he was making progress. He’d become downright skilled in archery, both in shortbows and crossbows. He was developing some side proficiencies in setting traps and lockpicking, neither of which was respectable, exactly, but at least they were useful. And he’d started making contacts here and there, working on developing a little spy network of people who didn’t run their mouths off nearly as much as Varric himself. He wasn’t entirely hopeless.

But he still didn’t seem to understand what it was to be a Tethras. Bartrand wondered if he’d gotten too influenced by surfacers and the sun, the way he went on so about  _ novels _ and  _ publishing  _ and other crap the humans had invented. 

He took Varric aside one day, pulling him into the kitchen. Ilsa slumbered in the sitting room, already drunk despite the early morning hour. Bartrand had long since accepted that queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach her stupors gave him, but something new was happening, something worse.

“You said you wanted to talk to me, brother?” Varric asked.

Bartrand nodded gruffly, tending the kitchen fire in preparation for breakfast. Bacon and the last of the eggs. He knew he could have hired a scullery maid, but he preferred the money staying in their coffers, and besides, he was a pretty good cook himself. The coals flared, flame dancing merrily above them.

“Mother’s getting worse,” said Bartrand baldly. “I brought a healer in to see her.”

“When was this?” Varric asked. 

“You were out. Sources say you were meeting up with a smith? Could be a good alliance.”

“Right,” said Varric, looking away. “It can never hurt to know a good smith. And she’s the best this side of the surface.” He gave Bartrand an uneasy chuckle.

“Anyway, the healer said Mother….” He grimaced. “It’s only a matter of time now, Varric.”

Varric crossed his arms, letting out a deep breath. “But she’s still so  _ young _ , Bartrand.”

“Maybe so, but she’s poisoned herself. You had to know she couldn’t drink like that for years without it catching up to her.” He stoked the fire, harder than he meant to. The poker sent sparks to the back of the fireplace.

“I guess that’s true.” He sighed. “Does... she know?”

“No. I didn’t see a reason to make it worse for her, understand? The healer thinks months. Maybe a year, if things go well.” He rummaged with the bacon. “But she shouldn’t be alone here anymore. Not all day, like before.” He hesitated. “I was thinking of hiring someone.”

“I can take care of her,” said Varric.

Bartrand closed his eyes, hoping this wasn’t one of Varric’s fancies. “Huh.”

“It makes sense. You’re busy. You have Guild crap, and this venture, and that venture… I can work on my writing while I’m here with her. It’ll save you having to pay for someone,” Varric said. “And Mom never liked surfacers in the house, anyway.” He smiled at Bartrand, but it lacked the usual attempt at charm. 

Bartrand nodded, fighting back something unfamiliar. Was it pride? Maybe? He wasn’t sure. “That sounds fine, brother. I think it’s for the best.”

***

Bartrand watched the funeral procession pass, laborer dwarves taking their mother away to be interred in the finest stone he could afford. Steam puffed out from their breath in the cold winter air. Bartrand couldn’t help a sense of relief, knowing she would finally be reunited with their father in a beautiful crypt on the edges of the dwarven quarter.

He turned to see Varric coming out of the front door, his face blotchy, eyelids swollen. Bartrand glanced around worriedly, hoping none of their neighbors would see. Some of the other houses could make use of such a display.

It wasn’t that Bartrand didn’t grieve their mother; she was their last connection to the past, the one who had kept them going after Father died, as best as she could. But Varric still needed to learn the difference between a public face and a private one. Public grief could be showed in careful visits to the crypt, composed and calm and cool. This — the snot glistening at the edge of Varric’s nose, the red cheeks, the puffy eyes — was utterly private.

“I guess that’s what she wanted, isn’t it,” said Varric dully at Bartrand’s side. The wagon passed out of sight, the sound of the wheels faint on the riven stone. “She never got over leaving Orzammar.”

Bartrand swallowed, uncomfortable. He’d never get used to Varric saying out loud the shit that should have stayed quiet. “She was a fine woman. She did what she had to for this family, as best as she could.”

“She shouldn’t have had to,” said Varric. “You ever wonder if it was exile that did it? And not the alcohol?”

Bartrand bristled. “Come on. Let’s get inside,” he muttered. “Walls have ears.”

They sat in the sitting room where Ilsa had spent most of her days in the end, drinking enough to fight off the shakes and the terrors, being sick as a dog when her body started rejecting even that. Bartrand leaned back against the settee, thinking hard.

“Look,” said Bartrand. “Now that Mother’s gone, we’re gonna have different priorities. You’re freed up again. And I’ll be honest, Varric, I think you might finally be getting the hang of being a Tethras. You stepped up, when you had to.”

Varric snorted. “Was that a compliment?”

Bartrand glowered at him. “It was, but I can take it back if you’re going to be smart about it.”

“You know me, brother. I’ve never  _ not  _ been a smartass.”

“That’s true enough,” he grumbled. “But I think you’re figuring it out. A silver tongue can get you out of trouble just as much as it can get you into it, you know.”

“That’s what I hear,” said Varric. He lifted up the blanket from the settee, pulling out a flask of whisky, Mother’s favorite. “Huh. Guess we can get rid of this now, can’t we.” His face crumpled, but he recovered quickly, putting on a twisted smile before he could start crying again.

“Pour a glass,” said Bartrand. 

“If you insist.”

“And I do. As eldest, it’s my right.”

“Is that a little sass I detect, brother?”

“It’s been a trying day,” Bartrand admitted. He watched as Varric rustled up some glasses and poured them two large measures of whisky. For a moment, both stared at the amber liquid. He could almost hear Ilsa’s voice again, parchment-thin and rustling by the end, begging for just a little more. 

Varric picked up his glass, holding it so that the firelight caught the curves. “To Mom.”

“To Mother,” Bartrand echoed. Their glasses clinked. He took a sip, whisky burning his throat, and swallowed the bitterness down.

Varric took a drink, shuddering. “Burns, doesn’t it.”

“No gains without a little pain.” He stared into the fire. 

“It’s rude to call me that, Bartrand.”

Bartrand turned to his brother, raising an eyebrow. “I’d say you’re a bastard for that remark, but technically, I’d be lying.”

“And you’d never lie to your own brother, would you?” Varric asked, nudging him in the shoulder.

Bartrand considered. The Tethras clan, starting to make their way in the world. The Tethras brothers, coming into their own.

“Lie to you?” he said. “No, never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little brothers are universally little shits. Even when we love them.


	2. The Mercenary's Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric Tethras has a reputation for meeting deadlines. Except the once.

The air at the docks hung stagnant, a salty, pungent morass. Varric grimaced at the reminder of fish. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was there, rancid and foul, beneath every breeze. 

But the docks were the place with the healer, some twobit reject that still was better than anyone else on offer. Varric stood in line at the woman’s mean little home, watching the waves come in and out for lack of anything better to do. It was his job -- one of the few things Bartrand trusted him with -- and he'd get it done. Not so much for Bartrand's sake, though, as for hers.

Sick people came and went around him, a much bleaker sight than the waves. Some were unmistakably marked by poverty; others wore noble finery but the clothes hung off their wasted frames. He pulled his gaze away, disturbed. At least the waves sounded nice, breaking upon the harbor.

He could try writing while he waited, but even the new pen he’d had made was unwieldy without a desk beneath it. It ran out of ink too quickly to dash off more than a page or so, which made writing on the go far more difficult. Maybe he'd be able to find a better one, Orzammar-made, if Bartrand's latest deal came through. Hand in his pocket, he rolled the pen between his thumb and forefinger, itching to write. 

He had a new story going. He was toying with the name, but he knew _mercenary_ had to make it into the title somewhere, given the main character. Mom liked it. He’d been reading it to her of late, but they were getting close to the end of what he had written so far. Maybe he’d get a chapter down tonight once he got home.

Gulls called in the harbor, wheeling back and forth. Varric watched them idly. He could use that; something about their soaring and diving could work as a metaphor for the merc’s struggle. Up and down, elegant, sometimes random. He made a mental note to remember it.

He’d get the medicine today; then it’d be back to the house after checking on a few contacts. If he was lucky, Bartrand would be out on some deal or another. If he was unlucky, Bartrand would be home, inevitably grousing at Varric about missed opportunities or his layabout behavior. It was always something with Bartrand, a neverending ledger of accusations, and his brother never forgot a sin. Part of what made the elder Tethras so charming.

Varric chuckled to himself as the line moved. Bartrand wouldn’t know charm if it bit him in the ass. 

The healer’s assistant, Elsie, tapped his shoulder, startling him. “Your mother’s medicine, messere Tethras.”

“You really don’t need to call me that, Elsie,” said Varric. “Thanks.” He pulled out the payment, handing her a pouch heavy with coin. “I’ll bring her for a visit with the healer next week, all right?”

“Of course, _messere_.” She grinned, the lines of her worn face splitting. He waved a hand at her, and headed away from the smell of fish and the sounds of the sea.

* * *

The medicine lay on the floor, yellow powder spilling out of the cloth pouch, staining the rug. It was where he'd dropped it in his haste, walking into the sitting room, seeing her gasping on the settee -- 

Varric stared at it for a moment, his eyes watering, hating its uselessness. He scooped a little of the powder back into the pouch, then tossed it into the fire. It crackled and smoked among the flames, leaving behind a salted, herbaceous smell.

Bartrand glared at him, looking pale. “I thought she was getting better.”

“So did I, Bartrand.” He raised his hands; opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again. Dropped his hands. "I'm sorry. I -- thought she had more time."

Bartrand sighed. His shoulders slumped. “You’ll have to make the arrangements in the morning. I’ve got a –”

“I know. You’ve got a thing.”

“I do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Varric in a hollow voice that sounded nothing like his own. “I’ll take care of it.” Take care of _her._ He looked to where she still lay, their best blankets draped over her, her face hidden. _I'm sorry, Mom._

Bartrand got up, closing the door behind him. It made such a heavy sound. 

Varric methodically began to gather up his papers, still sitting on the table. He stacked them up, aligning the edges carefully. There. He reached into his pocket, rolling the pen between his fingers, and he pulled off the cap with his teeth.

_The Mercenary’s Price_ , he wrote neatly at the top of the first page. He replaced the pen’s cap and set it down on the table.

He rolled up the papers, his vision blurring. He blinked away tears. It was a good story. She’d liked it, as much as she liked anything. 

The pages burned beautifully in the fire, and they smelled of salt and ash.


	3. the portrait

Dwarves don't have much call for the fantastic. Darkspawn sorties and long-forgotten thaigs live in their blood and bones, even when they trade stone for sunlight. Sometimes you want something a little more mundane with a pedigree like that: sometimes you want the comfort of a good old-fashioned murder mystery. Varric's tales trade in gold and intrigue, and once in a while a little romance, but he doesn't tell ghost stories. Let the human authors with their flights of fancy and their dreams play there.

But Bartrand's home sighs with unseen voices, crawls with things that shouldn't be but somehow are. He's seen mage shit before, Fade spirits reaching out into he world, but this is something different. It keeps Anders on edge and Merrill nervous. And through it Varric hears a song the others don't, whining in his ear like an itch he can't quite reach. He shivers. He never signed up for this.

_Are you a ghost, brother?_ he mutters to nobody.

The walls whisper his name.

***

Hawke bends down, picking up a small frame laying in the dust. She flips it over and finds a hand-painted family portrait of four dwarves, but it's clearly seen better days. Its borders are coated with dark grime, and a few errant drops of blood have dried on the canvas. She frowns, squinting at the details beneath the dirt.

She thinks she notes Varric's mouth on the stern-faced dwarf woman, and perhaps his eyes in the hooded gaze of the man. A boy around ten glowers from the bottom of the portrait. Bartrand? If that's the case, then the towheaded toddler might be Varric himself. He is the only one with a smile among the dour lot of them.

That seems right.

“Well, Varric, Bartrand might not be here, but do you recognize this?” She turns back to him, holding out the painting. “Is this your family?”

Varric reaches out and takes the battered painting. He's been off all night, quiet instead of joking, somehow distracted. She isn't sure if it's lingering resentment towards Bartrand, or the weird aura in this house causing him to look so uncharacteristically serious, but it worries her all the same.

His mouth thins into a narrow crease. “Haven’t seen this in years.”

“So is that you? The sweet little boy with the smile?”

Varric laughs, a short, bark-like sound. His eyes stay tense. “Ah, don’t worry about it, Hawke.” He shoves it into a pocket of his leather coat without another glance, and hefts Bianca over his shoulder. “Well, it’s just like I thought. Nothing here but dust.” 

He heads towards the door, puffs of fine dirt rising from the carpet with each step, and she knows she won't get another word from him about it.


End file.
